The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses

by Charles Bukowski

  those islands,

  so completely lost,

  utterly lost.

  You’d hardly know him now.

  He’s stopped drinking

  and weighs 297,

  (and he kissed just like you,

  and had little wires in his left

  leg, but he’d never tell me…)

  …and the chauffeur

  walked into the room

  with a basket

  with a live chicken

  in it. This guy grabbed the chicken

  around the neck

  and whirled it

  around and around

  and you should have heard

  that chicken scream

  and then he cut it with a knife

  and the blood

  flew like rain

  and this guy

  played his piccolo

  and watched my eyes,

  and that’s all that happened,

  even though he had made me

  take off my dress.

  He gave me $25

  but somehow

  the whole thing

  made me sick.

  Nicholas was a queer

  and impotent,

  and he was my lover.

  He still has my

  e.e. cummings.

  The first one was insane.

  He blew

  through fig leaves

  while sitting on the coffee table

  his hands tangled in my hair.

  He played the oboe

  and you know what

  they say about the oboe:

  they took him away

  from me

  and he was like a child.

  I gave the oboe to a ballet dancer

  who broke his

  leg on

  a camp stool

  while

  hiking

  in the Adirondacks.

  I was engaged to Arlington

  only three weeks.

  And he tore the ring from my finger

  claiming he didn’t

  want to marry the whole

  queer army.

  Later he cried on my shoulder

  and told me he was a queen bee

  and a general

  and that he had been kidding himself

  all his life.

  I cried when he left.

  Ralph was the only one, I think,

  who ever loved me,

  but he didn’t appreciate the finer

  things:

  he thought that Van Gogh used to pitch for

  Brooklyn and that George Sand played

  opposite Zsa Zsa Gabor.

  And when he sent money from East Lansing

  I bought a hi-fi set and a toy bull

  with blue eyes

  and called him Keithy-pot.

  I sent Ralph a pressed azalea and a photo

  of me

  bending over

  in a bikini.

  Sherman was afraid of the dark.

  He died swallowing a

  cherry seed. Roger—I’ve told

  you

  about him; Roger started

  a good story once

  but he never finished it.

  It was about a queer

  sitting at a table

  at a night club

  and these people came up—

  but, oh, I can’t explain it.

  Peter will kill himself some day.

  Art will kill himself.

  Tommy set fire to the bed and

  beat his mother. I only

  lived with him

  because of her. We went

  to Alkaseltzer Mass

  together. Once he

  hit her when she

  got off the streetcar.

  Then he hit me. I hated him,

  but she was like a mother to me.

  And then I met you.

  Remember that Sunday at

  the Round Duck?

  You said,

  let’s go to

  Mexico.

  And you took me up

  to your place

  and read Erie Stanley Gardner

  and then you hung out

  the window.

  You looked like my father.

  You should have known my father.

  He was a drunkard.

  Oh, I’m so glad I met you.

  You make me

  feel so

  good. Darling you are a

  man.

  The only real

  MAN

  I’ve ever known!

  Oh dear, how I’ve

  waited!

  My hands are cold and

  you have the funniest

  feet!

  I love you…

  song of my typewriter:

  the best way to think is not at all—

  my banjo screams in the brush

  like a trapped rabbit (do rabbits

  scream? never mind: this is an

  alcoholic dream);

  machine guns, I say,

  the altarboys,

  the wet nurses,

  the fat newsboys,

  rubber-lipped delegates

  of the precious life;

  my banjo screams

  sing

  sing through the darkened dream,

  green grow green,

  take gut:

  death, at last,

  is no headache.

  and the moon and the stars and the world:

  long walks at

  night—

  that’s what’s good

  for the

  soul:

  peeking into windows

  watching tired

  housewives

  trying to fight

  off

  their beer-maddened

  husbands.

  the sharks

  the sharks knock on my door

  and enter and ask favors;

  how they puff in my chairs

  looking about the room,

  and they ask for deeds:

  light, air, money,

  anything they can get—

  beer, cigarettes, half dollars, dollars,

  fives, dimes,

  all this as if my survival were assured,

  as if my time were nothing

  and their presence valuable.

  well, we all have our sharks, I’m sure,

  and there’s only one way to get them off

  before they hack and nibble you to death—

  stop feeding them; they will find

  other bait; you fattened them

  the last dozen times around—

  now set them out

  to sea.

  fag, fag, fag

  he wrote,

  you are a humorless ass,

  I was only pulling your leg about D.

  joining the Foreign Legion, and

  D. is about as much fag as

  Winston Churchill.

  hmm, I thought, I am in contact with the

  greatest minds of my

  generation. clever! Winnie is dead so he

  can’t be a

  fag.

  the letter continued,

  you guys in California are fag-happy,

  all you do is sit around and think about

  fags. just the same I will send you the anti-war

  materials I and others wrote, although I

  doubt it will stop the

  war.

  10 years ago he had sent me a photo of

  D. and himself at a picnic ground.

  D. was dressed in a Foreign Legion uniform,

  there was a bottle of wine,

  and a table with one tableleg

  crooked.

  I thought it over for 10 years and then

  answered:

  I have nothing against 2 men sleeping together

  so long as I am not one of those 2

  men.

  I didn’t infer which one was
the

  fag.

  anyway, today I got the anti-war materials

  in the mail, but he’s right:

  it won’t stop the war or anything

  else.

  Ivan the Terrible

  found it difficult

  either to stand or

  to bend over

  was fat with

  big eyes and

  low

  forehead

  had a perennial

  smile

  due to an

  underslung

  jaw

  killed his eldest son

  with blows

  in a moment

  of anger

  appeared to be uncomfortable

  after the age

  of

  40

  excelled in progress

  and

  butchery

  died in 1584

  at the age of

  54, weighing

  209

  pounds

  last summer

  they removed his

  skeleton

  from the Arkhangelsk Church

  in the Kremlin

  to make a

  lifelike

  bust

  now

  he’s almost done

  and looks like

  a 20th century

  bus driver

  the bones of my uncle

  (for J.B. who never read the stuff)

  the bones of my uncle

  rode a motorcycle in Arcadia

  and raped a housewife

  within a garage

  hung with rakes and hoses

  the bones of my Uncle

  left behind

  1: a jar of peanut butter

  and

  2: two girls named

  Katherine &

  Betsy and

  3: a ragged wife who cried

  continually.

  the bones of my Uncle

  played horses

  too

  and

  made counterfeit money—

  mostly dimes, and the F.B.I. wanted him for

  something more serious

  although what it was

  I have since

  forgotten.

  the bones of my Uncle

  stretched the long way

  seemed too short

  and looked at

  coming toward you

  bent like bows

  beneath the knees.

  the bones of my Uncle

  smoked and cussed

  and they were buried

  where bones are buried

  who have no

  money.

  I almost forgot to tell you:

  his bones were named “John”

  and

  had green eyes

  which did not

  last.

  a last shot on two good horses

  it was about 10 years ago at Hollywood Park—

  I had a shackjob, 2 cars, a house, a dog as big as Nero drunk,

  and I was making it with the horses, or I thought I was,

  but going into the 7th race I was down to my last $50

  and I put the $50 on Determine and then I wanted a cup of coffee

  but I only had a dime left and coffee was then 15¢.

  I went into the crapper and I wanted to flush myself away,

  they had me, all I had left was that piece of paper in my wallet,

  and I would have been willing to sell that back for $40

  but I was ashamed. well, I went out and watched the race

  and Determine won.

  I collected and set aside a ten and put the remainder all on

  My Boy Bobby. My Boy Bobby made it. I collected and stood over in

  a corner, separating the 50s and the 20s and tens and fives,

  and then I drove on in, I gave her the thumb up as I drove up the drive,

  and when I got inside I threw all the money up into the air.

  She was a beautiful whore and her eyes almost came out when she saw

  that, and the dog ran in and snatched a ten and ran into the kitchen,

  and I was pouring drinks and she said, “hey, the hound got a tenner!”

  and I said, “hell, let him have it!” we drank ’em down.

  then I said, “umm, I think I’ll get that ten anyhow,” and I walked in

  and took it from him, it was only chewed a little, and that night

  on the bed she showed me all the tricks in wonderland, and later

  it rained and we listened to Carmen and drank and laughed all night long.

  days and nights like that just don’t happen too often.

  III

  & the great white horses come up

  & lick the frost of the dream

  no grounding in the classics

  I haven’t slept

  for 3 nights

  or 3 days

  and my eyes are more

  red than white;

  I laugh in the

  mirror,

  and I have been

  listening to the clock

  tick

  and the gas

  of my heater

  smells

  a hot thick

  heavy

  smell, run

  through with the sounds

  of cars,

  cars strung up

  like ornaments

  in my head, but

  I have read

  the classics

  and on my couch

  sleeps a wine-soaked

  whore

  who for the first

  time

  has heard

  Beethoven’s 9th,

  and bored,

  has fallen asleep,

  politely

  listening.

  just think, daddy, she said,

  with your brains

  you might be the first man

  to copulate

  on the moon.

  drawing of a band concert on a matchbox

  life on paper is so much more

  pleasurable:

  there are no bombs or flies or

  landlords or starving

  cats,

  and I am in the kitchen

  staring down at the blue lake of the

  concertmaster

  and also the trees

  rowboats, boy with American flag

  lady in yellow with fan

  Civil War veteran

  girl with balloon

  spotted dog

  sailboat,

  the peace of an ancient day

  with the sun dreaming old

  battles—

  John L. Sullivan emptying the pint

  in his dressing room

  and getting ready to whip the world like a

  bad child—

  far from our modern life

  where a doctor sticks something in your side,

  saying, “is something making you nervous? something is

  killing you.”

  I open the matchbox, take out a beautiful wooden match

  and light a cigar.

  I look out the window. it is raining, there will be nothing

  in the park today except bums and madmen.

  I blow the smoke against the wet glass and wonder what I am doing

  inside here

  dry and dying and

  I hear the rain as a toilet flushes through the wall

  (a living neighbor)

  and the flowers open their arms for love.

  I sit down next to the lady in yellow with the fan and

  she smiles at me

  and we talk we talk

  only I can’t hear for all the music

  “your name? your name?” I keep asking

  but she only smiles at me

  and the dog is howling.

  but yellow is my favorite color

  (Van Gogh liked it too)

  yellow

  and I d
o not blow smoke in her face

  and I am there

  I am actually down there in the matchbox

  and I am here too.

  she smiles

  and I lay her right on the

  stove

  and it is

  hot

  hot

  the American flag waves in

  battle—

  play your music concertmaster

  in your red coat

  with your hot July buttocks.

  the balloon pops and I walk across a kitchen

  on a rainy day in February

  to check on eggs and bread and

  wine and sanity

  to check on glue

  to paste nice pictures

  on these walls.

  bad night

  I am fairly drunk and there is a man jumping

  up and down on the floor in his shack next door

  he’s rough on the floorboards and I listen to his

  dance while my wife is in the can and Fidelio is on

  our radio, and today at the track I lost $70 and a woman

  got her foot caught in the escalator, and the drunks

  hollered at the usher: REVERSE IT! THROW IT IN

  REVERSE! meanwhile, the red blood and the gamblers

  and

  myself watching the tote for a meaningful flash and I

  dumped it in

  the wrong place.

  now the man has stopped jumping on the floor and

  has opened his bible. well, it has been a bad

  summer for all of us. a particular feeling

  a flailing feeling of too much. we are shocked

  almost senseless with the demand to put on our

  socks, we hang like paintings of blue-skinned